Every year I remember brainstorming with my Mum elaborate themed birthday parties. Kids parties can be so much fun. One year, about age Eight I think, was the Arty Farty Birthday Party! So when babysitting my nieces yesterday I imagined she would have her birthday, coming up next week, all planned. Granted she is only three, so I really shouldn’t have been so surprised that when I asked her what she was doing for her birthday all she said was “CAKE!!!!”. Ha, it made me realise that the best kids birthday parties at that young age can be very simple. So we settled on lots of Cake, Friends, Presents and Colour.

PS have an awesome present lined up for her can’t wait to give it 🙂

PPS this is all sourced from my favourite website Etsy here is the shops for each item

Last Sunday we had a gorgeous baby shower. All sunflowers and happy, happy yellows. It was a perfect celebration for a little baby niece of Toms which is expected to join the family in 1 month. I am so excited to meet this little bundle and know her parents are beside themselves and can’t wait to meet her.

This being the first niece for Tom, we wanted to make something really special for the bub. I think I’ve made it quite clear that I am a huge supporter of homemade or individualised gifts so what follows probably isn’t much of a surprise. Jaime the mama to be has a special place in her heart for India and has a lot of indian fabrics in her room, so we settled on a baby mobile using indian hanging elephants.

The elephants started life as a wall hanging I bought off Ebay and then chopped up into single elephants. Purple jersey fabric was wrapped around a metal hoop and you dont want to know how many tiny glass beads we used. There was a lot of late nights of beading including a very cool Saturday night where Tom and I sat side by side beading (and yes I love him even more for doing craft with me late into the night). I tell you it was all worth it because the end result is a pretty mobile for what will be the cutest baby girl ( I know this already I swear!) and it was loved by the mum to be, making her very happy, so I would say that is a job well done. There is even talk of making this an heirloom of sorts and used for all babies in the family of this generation, so lucky I made sure we quadruple tied ever knot!

Christmas was perfect. It wasn’t a large extravagant event by any means. This years christmas was actually significantly smaller in numbers than usual and whilst many of the usual suspects were missed it was delightful in its simplicity. I did miss the nieces and nephews, christmas is definitely a bit less exciting without kids running around but it was a lovely day as it was and I am looking forward to a christmas next year with more little additions to buy cute presents for!

Normally I feel like I am running a race on christmas trying to spend quality time with the huge group of people that are near and dear to me but this year I stayed in Fremantle with a select few and we had a great time.

(Nan refuses to look good in photos. It is just to spite us, I am sure of that. I took four photos all like this geesh nan!)

It was fun and relaxing but thats not to say there wasn’t a great deal of cooking invovled. and cooking with a hot oven on a 40 degree day is not a walk in the park. The food was delish and I wanted to share one of the simplest things I made. It literally takes no prep time at all but it was a huge hit at brunch.

Salmon and Dill Quiche

100g smoked salmon

5 eggs

30 ml full cream milk

3/4 red onion

roughly torn bunch of dill

pinch of black pepper and sumac

1 sheet of frozen store bought puff pastry

All it takes is pressing the puff pastry into a baking paper lined, 9inch tin and blind baking it in the oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees. Whilst that bakes crack all the eggs in a bowl, whisk and combine the milk and spices. Then add the thinly diced onion and torn salmon and dill combine and pour the mixture into the pastry and cook for 50 minutes it should be firm with a golden top.

About 6 months ago I started to think about making a tent for my nieces but was to busy to start it at the time. I had seen a few on different blogs and on Etsy but definitely loved the idea of making one with my own hands. A present just has more love and soul when you make it yourself in my opinion. So now study is finished for the year all these little plans I had in the pipeline are being acted on and I’m really excited. I was also very happy to involve tom in the project and he was very quick and efficient in making the frame. A real god send when I think of how much longer it would have taken me to do it alone.

It involved a trip to Bunnings, 2 trips to spotlight and three sewing machines but really is quite a simple task. It was a bit of a learning curve for me and did invovle some stress but now its completed I am so happy with the tent and the skills I’ve learnt. I hadn’t sewen anything since highschool and now I have my very own spanking new machine and I am very excited about the new projects this allows 🙂

Making the frame was chiefly toms contribution but I did some mean sanding in this part and drilled the prettiest of all the holes.

The final product in all its glory!

Tom actually hid in the tent so when the girls unwrapped it on the front lawn he popped out, stroke of genius on his part.

Alls well that ends well and This tent project ended up with two little happy girls and a pretty chuffed uncle and aunty 🙂

Peacock chairs… I know they are gaudy but I just can’t help it I love them. They have a quintessential Boho 70’s feel and they remind the of the styling from the movie Almost Famous, which is not a bad thing. The cane material means they clearly work outdoors on a patio, maybe with some tropical garden as the back drop. But don’t be surprised if you see one in my living room. I have seen some great designs and styling incorporating neutral toned peacock chair in gorgeous maximalist rooms. I have my eyes on one that is in the window of Store on South Tce. It is gaudy and yellow but it makes me smile. It’s price tag is the only thing preventing me from taking it home so I think I might be on the look out for a thrifted version. Gumtree and Ebay here I come.

We had a thanks giving dinner last Friday night and I was beyond excited! Like probably a little too excited, but it was the first one we were doing ourselves. I have been lucky enough to be hosted at other peoples family dinners but this year we decided to do one ourselves for our American boyfriends. My gorgeous friend Anna made an amazing Turkey which looked fantastic and I made the sides and decorations. Doing the decoration was by far the most enjoyable bit of the thanksgiving prep and I’ll share on that later. During the night Anna and I nerd-ed our and took the photo’s of EVERYTHING but I’m so glad we have those memories to look back on now. I think the guys really appreciated the effort we made to make them a little less homesick and I know we all had a great night surrounded by fantastic friends. There was even a legit corn hole set which was made by our friends Adam and Anna and was well used through out the night. Like I said our friends are amazing and the night was perfect.

I love finding unexpected colour and patterns in a home. How much better is this than plain jane stairs. Each one these stairs are so funky and it would be totally possible to do it yourself. Imagine how much fun would the painting process be. It’s like a mini mural on each step. Mind you I would probably have fun on stairs 1-5 but the last few may take some patience. I especially love the Mediterranean tiles on outdoor stairs. You like?

Etsy is the best for pretty illustrations. I think it is a great platform for artists to get a global audience and I love the opportunity it gives people to buy original art that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg…very important for the student. I love to give illustrations as presents, who doesn’t want to get some pretty art for their house instead of another bottle of wine or flowers (actually you can always give me both those things as a present and I wont be disappointed). But art is really the best present ever!

My friends all know I don’t shy away from colour. It makes me feel happy and energised and I am always attracted colourful furniture/clothes/rooms…really any colourful design. So I thought I would share some colourful rooms that I love including the one and only, beloved Langham living room (sorry about the iphone crappy photos). So you can see the inspiration and the shabby chic/student budget/verge pick up version 🙂

I handed in my thesis a week ago and in celebration I have tried to spend the last week liberated from my computer. In the last month it had gotten a bit ridiculous how much of my day was spent sitting in front of the computer. So I retaliated in the best way possible and went camping for 4 days over the weekend. It was great. All we did was read, go for walks, lie on the beach and sleep and then sleep some more. It was much needed rejuvenation and my darling boyfriend was the perfect camping partner, understanding exactly the relaxation I needed.

Here are some photos for you to look at and get jealous of our short but sweet escape. Unfortunately now its back to the real world and man is it back with a vengeance!

(Conto’s Beach)

(Jenga and Lunch at Olio Bello)

(Prevelly)

(Volcanic water…not so good)

(Cape to cape trail, Grace Town)

(Glam camping, popping the champers to celebrate end of thesis at our little camp)